


Don't Leave Me

by Phoenixflames12



Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Blood and Injury, Book 8: Written in My Own Heart's Blood, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 15:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10856394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixflames12/pseuds/Phoenixflames12
Summary: 'Dinnae leave me alone, Mo Sorcha. Not yet.'Jamie's point of view after Claire is shot in Written in My Own Heart's Blood.





	Don't Leave Me

**Author's Note:**

> All dialogue that sounds remotely Diana Gabaldon-esque belongs strictly to the book.

Don’t Leave Me 

He doesn’t know whether the shot is fired by friend or foe.

 

The sudden, pungent scent of blood and burning assaults his nostrils as he sees her stagger from the impact; her body automatically curling in on itself as she falls, crumpling to the ground in a fan of thick, sodden skirts.

 

‘Sassenach!’

 

The shout is ripped from his throat before he fully processes it, before his eyes begin to blink away the rivers of salt and sweat obscuring his vision, before he understands that he is charging towards her. He shoves his way past the Continental soldier sitting on the stool beside the white canvas of her tent, his boots sinking into a bowl of bloody water, but he hardly feels it.

 

Hardly hears the officer’s cry of wounded surprise, or sees the thin, young face already blanched with pain grow whiter still with dawning shock.

_Oh God, Claire, Sassenach… No… It is not your time… It canna be your time… Not yet…_

_‘_ Sassenach!’

 

He closes the last yards between them in a single stride, his eyes only for the crumpled figure curled in a steadily growing pool of black blood.

 

_Blood in the dark is black, not red._

Her body is trembling under his touch as his knees give way; hardly feeling the sudden sharpness in his back as the spine contracts, her hands clamped tightly over her right side.

 

Blood blooms over her fingers, staining the white, calloused skin a ghastly scarlet.

 

Instinctively he tries to reach for them, to hold them, to let her know that he is there, but she pulls them back; a low, guttural groan rattling from her throat.

 

_What can I do, mo Sorcha?_

‘Sassenach! Claire!’

 

His voice does not feel like his own.

 

Gingerly, he reaches for her sodden skirts, blood welling against his fingers; hot and cold and sticky as he tries to examine the wound. Tries not to look at her face, deathly pale but still filled with a small flicker of determined life.

 

‘I’m here… I’m here…’ He hardly knows what he’s saying, the words coming in short, shallow panting gasps.

 

_It isnae your time, mo nighean don…Just hold on… Please… Hold on!_

But the blood wouldn’t stop.

 

Desperately he tries looking for a kerchief; realising belatedly that he had given it to Bixby, Claire’s blood thrumming over the back of his hand as a horrible sound is wrenched from her throat.

 

_God… Claire!_

 

He cannot do this alone.

 

‘Help! Help me, Rachel! Dottie!’

 

The girls and Denzell Hunter, the only ones that he trusts in the blood -soaked hell hole to tend his wife, do not reply.

 

Around him silent clumps of dead and wounded look on through sightless eyes. Through the tombstones, he can just make out the flickering forms of soldiers; some running, others wandering the field in a haunted daze that he knows only too well.

 

He shouts again, not caring what he says. His throat tears at the effort; blood ripping into his parched mouth.

 

_Someone must hear._

_Please, please let someone, anyone hear._

 

The forms seem to blur before him, twisting, transforming into the shapes of the ragged remains of General Cope’s army back at Prestonpans. Blur into Murtagh; his godfather moving through the slowly rising fog like a black and bloodied spectre.

 

‘Murtagh…’

 

He must be dreaming.

 

Must be dreaming, because Murtagh was dead, had been killed at Culloden, lifeblood seeping into his hands, staining the trampled tussock grass as he held his godfather’s head; weeping for love and loss of him and yet a very real figure is moving towards them.

_Denzell?_

The figure is coming closer, pounding footsteps thundering through him as he clings to Claire, his knuckles taut and white beneath the blood as he realises with a jolt that it is Leckie, hurdling a tombstone to reach them.

 

‘Shot?’

 

He hardly hears the question.

 

 _She’d want Denny,_ he thinks numbly, nodding to Leckie, but unable to move away. His hands seem to be frozen in place, bunched in the fabric of Claire’s skirt, watching through unseeing eyes as the man paws his way through her baskets and comes out smiling grimly, holding a wad of lint.

 

He doesn’t feel the surgeon’s elbow in his ribs, nor feel the dirt crawling under his nails as he moves away; unwilling to take his eyes off her.

 

Only the fluttering of her eyelids and the slow, shuddering gasps for breath give any sign of life as he pulls himself to his feet; a rush of blood to his head making him sway, waves of silent helplessness crashing over him.

 

Around him he can feel a small knot of soldiers form up, including the moon -faced chap that Claire had been tending when… No. He would not think it. He cannot think it, not yet.

 

They shuffle their feet in the mud and avert their eyes, not knowing what to do and he grits his teeth against a shout of frustration that he is too weak to give.

 

_She’d want Denny. If she survived long enough for him to come, wherever he was. She’d want Denny, a man that she knew, a man that she trusted unlike…_

A slow, gulping breath comes with difficulty, his lungs feeling as if they are being squeezed too tightly together.

 

He couldn’t leave her.

 

He wouldn’t leave her.

 

Whirling about, he grabs a soldier by his lapels. The face swims in front of him, eyes shining with exhausted concern, but he does not take it in.

 

Does not even understand the order that he gives, only that it is to find Dr Hunter and quickly before he lets the man go and he sprints away to the church; mud splattering in his wake.

 

‘ _Find Denzell Hunter. Now.’_

_Dear God, let him come in time._

‘Sir…’

 

A gabble of whispers has started; hoarse and low and frightened, but he refuses to understand it.

 

And then there is a man at his shoulder, an aide from General Lee, but he does not look at them.

 

His eyes are only for the spectacle on the ground, the blackened blood that soaks the grass, soaking her clothes, her hair, that stained the knees of Leckie’s breeches as he knelt over her.

 

He only sees the tangle of her hair, a cloud of wild curls filled with grass and tanzleweeds and her face…

 

Pale and taut and ghostlike, void of the life he loves and yet he knows, or is convincing himself that a flicker of life lives there still.

 

The gabble of whispers has become almost unbearable now.

 

They were telling whoever had come that the general’s wife had been shot and was badly hurt, perhaps dying…

 

_No._

_She was not dying._

_He would not allow that._

_Not now._

 

‘She’s not dying!’ The bellow sears his throat as he rounds on them, their blackened faces blanching in aghast terror, tiptoeing back, mumbling apologies.

 

It is only Bixby who steps gingerly forward, watching warily as if he were a lighted grenade about to go off at any moment.

 

‘Can I help, sir?’

 

_Give me my wife back._

_Stop the bleeding._

_Find Denzell Hunter. Find Rachel, find Dottie, find John, find my nephew, find my… my son…_

_Oh God Willie, Ian, where are ye?_

‘No’, he manages to croak and Bixby somehow grows paler, realisation flooding his face, making him look suddenly ten years younger.

 

_God, why were they all so young?_

‘General-’the newcomer is at his other elbow; tall, resolute and far too young in a baggy, blue lieutenant’s uniform.

 

His face is set in an expression of dogged eagerness that makes Jamie’s stomach curl.

 

‘I dislike to intrude sir, but as your wife’s not dying-‘

 

‘Go away!’

 

He takes a breath after that, the shock of the outburst making both young men flinch.

 

_Good. Now perhaps they would leave him in peace._

But the newcomer does not back down and sticks his chin out in an air of defiance, drawing himself up to his full height in an air that reminds him so much of William that he would laugh if he had the strength.

 

Beside him, Bixby’s expression is torn between a dark eyed glare and badly concealed concern.

 

Despite himself, Jamie feels a rush of pride for the young officer; he was a good lad, steady and level headed and knew his duty, it was just a pity that it had led to this.

 

‘Sir,’ the newcomer says stubbornly, throwing an appraising look at Bixby who scowls back.

 

‘General Lee has sent me urgently to find you. He requires that you attend him at once.’

 

_Attend him._

A low, deep growl rumbles at the back of Jamie’s throat.

_He was not a servant, a dog to be called on a master’s whim._

 

‘Bugger Lee’, he hears Bixby say through the haze of anger.

 

A haze that was soaked wet with Claire’s blood as he bends his head away from the arguing boys, shuts his eyes and prays with his whole being that Denny might arrive in time.

_‘Dinnae leave me Claire…A ghraidh… A nighean don… Dinnae leave me alone…’_

 

* * *

_**Fin** _

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, questions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


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